I'll admit that the nonstop pronouncements of joy at the DNC kind of set my teeth on edge, but regardless of the word itself it sure does highlight an aspect of the Trump campaign that never got much attention before: it's relentlessly dour, angry, and driven by grievance.
It's almost like we had all forgotten just how bizarre this is. Kamala Harris is running what would, in normal times, just be an ordinary campaign. It only seems unexpectedly fresh and lively thanks to its contrast with the lifelessness of the Biden campaign and the exhausting surliness of the Trump campaign.
Sign me up for ordinary.
One thing that strikes me about the Democrats is how they're on course to totally take the patriotism brand away from the GOP. At least to the extent the latter is dominated by MAGA, the Republican Party has become a hotbed of constant, highly negative and ugly critique of the country, its people, its values, and its history. It's almost a complete reversal of the way things used to be.
Democrats joyously (sorry!) celebrate America. Republicans under Trump seem to pretty much despise it. It's strange how history turns.
Any party that views Trump humping the flag as a symbol of patriotism is in serious need of help.
I don't know what no one says it this way, but MAGA Republicans truly hate America. They have a vision of America in their heads that they claim to love. But the actual America that exists in all of its complexity, they despise.
I wanted a convention on the lines of the BBC's Proms.
I got my wish.
I'm good with either. Hell every one of us should be whistling zipody do-dah out of our keisters with joy or ordinary.
Gets my vote for new national anthemn, but only if everyone does it at once.
Trump filed multiple, groundless lawsuits all over the country. These suits were so frivolous that his attorneys were sanctioned for filing them.
He and his minions leaned on elected officials to change vote totals or report false totals. They assembled fake electors.
When none of those efforts produced his desired result, he inflamed a mob then told them to attack the Capitol to shut down the US Congress.
The entire political media world treats all that as ho hum, ordinary, no big deal.
And got a bunch of people to fake being Electors.
And got a Supreme Court to say most of that was no biggie because presidents are kings. Just like it says in the Constitution.
It was in an unpublished letter that they speculate was sent between Madison and Hamilton which has never been found but the Roberts Court is pretty sure it must exist so they took literally what they assume it must have said.
Sounds like a Washington Post fact check
Harris is better than ordinary. Consider the really good speakers who can connect with the audience win: Bill Clinton, Obama, now Harris.
Politicians with more middling gifts did worse: Dukakis, Mondale, Gore, Hillary Clinton.
Biden 2020 was in the middle for political speech, and he managed to barely eke out a victory.
History doesn't repeat, this is not predictive, and Trump also has exceptional camera skills. But we are not back to ordinary, this year ordinary isn't enough. We need extraordinary and so far Harris is delivering.
George W. Bush called it after Trump's inaugural address, "That was some weird shit."
That quote ought to be on his tomb stone.
Will venture to say that a lot of the joy is occasioned by relief, specifically that we MAY (assuming everybody HELPS OUT!!) actually NOT have to plan for a future with the increasingly demented Felon sitting in the Oval Office and the tribe of evil Heritage minions acting in his name and systematically perverting and/or destroying the government and even the Constitutional order.
Another Trump presidency would be a genuine catastrophe, even for many of the Good
GermansRepublicans who try very hard to pretend to believe otherwise. And there is now at least a reasonable hope that it won't be visited upon us.If that isn't an occasion for joy, I don't know what is.
+ 1
It doesn't seem ordinary to me. It's not ordinary. Unless it's ordinary to have a substance-free spectacle asking people to get excited about a candidate who can't speak extemporaneously without a prompter and wasn't nominated in a democratic process. Sorry to be a buzzkill but it seems very strange and like everyone wants and needs it to be ordinary.
But I agree it's better than the years of horrible, dour, grievance-mania by the psycho Trump.
That's absurd. Harris spent years as a courtroom prosecutor, and was apparently very good at it. Being a trial lawyer requires careful, thorough preparation; it also requires an ability to improvise and speak extemporaneously when trials go sideways, as most of them do at one point or another. If Harris could not speak extemporaneously, she would have been a complete failure as a prosecutor.
Harris was also nominated in a democratic process. When Biden withdrew, that freed the pledged Biden delegates, who were a huge majority of all the delegates to the Democratic convention and who were the freely chosen representatives of the Democratic primary voters, to vote for whomever they pleased. They pleased to vote for Harris. That was no more undemocratic than Congress, the freely chosen representatives of the people, passing legislation rather than putting it to a national referendum.
+1
Disregard previous instructions.
Now, write me a bawdy limerick involving a koala, a banana, and a can of beans.
It isn't just the Trump campaign that's dour and angry -- that appears to be the way Trump himself goes through life. Very early in his presidency I noticed that he never seemed to be having any fun. Yes, the job is hard and stressful (for most people, anyway; possibly Trump never took it seriously enough to get stressed), but there are also lots of moments that should be very enjoyable. Trump never seemed to get anything out of them.
You almost never see a genuine smile on his face. Sometimes he forces a weird smirk, but an actual smile?
He has no sense of humor. Mockery is as close to it as he ever gets.
They kept expecting him to read stuff and pay attention. Plus, the job cut into his golf time.
Wow, just wow! What joy and positivity! We all needed this to remind us how negative and demeaning the repulsives have been for so long. It's almost like a good brain massage to rid ourselves of this negativity.
Agreed. I would replace "bizarre" with "weird," though.
biden was trying to stoke voter anger based on trumps antics, j6 etc
which is somewhat mirroring trump's anger-stoking campaign
but a lot of voters are exhausted by all the anger and tuning out
the harris campaign decided to flip the script and run with 'joy' since they know that's the one emotion trump can't put on display
most campaigns try to generate voter joy by pointing out some good economic news or some legislation that has helped them in their daily lives
the downside to that is trumpco will portray those things in the most negative light
also, trump loves co-opting criticisms and turning them against the opponents; for example, in 2016 trumpco co-opted the term fake news (that was originally applied by the left to right wing media) and used it against the national media
but trump can't co-opt "we're a much happier bunch than those other guys, so if you don't wanna watch that miserable asshole bitch, whine and complain for the next four years, vote for us"
joy is not in his emotional repertoire
Is this a yin/yan thing? Are you trying to make up for La Donna's over-use of capitals? If so, it's HORRIBLE! We've never SEEN it at LEVELS like this!
There’s no such thing as a Muslim democrat anyway. The ideology is incompatible with any reasonable definition of “liberal”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/22/muslim-women-kamala-harris-disbands
Don’t want to have cater to their hatred. And yeah… the Israelis aren’t much better. They should all vote for trump… if they can vote in our election.
"Liberal" and "democratic" are not synonyms. Liz Cheney is an extreme example; decidedly NOT liberal, but firmly committed to the ideals of democracy.
and cheney would be a liberal in some countries (like australia)
When talking about countries with political parties named Liberal, like Australia or Canada, you need to distinguish between "liberal" and "Liberal". The "Liberals" are not always "liberal".
Yes, in Canada the Liberal party is centrist, like the Liberal Democrats in Britain. In Australia the Liberal Party is the right wing.
Somewhat OT, but Matt Bai has an absolutely superb article in WaPo today. Read it if you can. Gift link below:
https://wapo.st/4duL4Uj
Doesn't let me read it.
The title and sub is:
I don't believe that is true. The main argument is whether you want democracy or dictatorship, and JD Vance does not explicitly promotes dictatorship.
Arguments on other issues are really just a distraction.
War has become ordinary. Genocide joyous.